Posted
by
Soulskill
on Thursday March 08, 2012 @05:44PM
from the ahh-the-rare-dodecaboost dept.

An anonymous reader writes "We've frequently discussed the growing trend among video game publishers to adopt a business model in which downloading and playing the game is free, but part of the gameplay is supported by microtransactions. There have been a number of success stories, such as Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. During a talk at the Game Developers Conference this week, Valve's Joe Ludwig officially added Team Fortress 2 to that list, revealing that the game has seen a 12-fold increase in revenue since the switch. He said, 'The trouble is, when you're a AAA box game, the only people who can earn you new revenue are the people who haven't bought your game. This drives you to build new content to attract new people. There's a fundamental tension between building the game to satisfy existing players and attract new players.' He also explained how they tried to do right by their existing playerbase: 'We dealt with the pay-to-win concern in a few ways. The first was to make items involve tradeoffs, so there's no clear winner between two items. But by far the biggest thing we did to change this perception was to make all the items that change the game free. You can get them from item drops, or from the crafting system. It might be a little easier to buy them in the store, but you can get them without paying.'"

Call it freemium, call it widget frosting, call it whatever you want... giving the core item away and selling the addons has always worked in the gaming industry and this is just another victory for the concept.

A common truism you learn in business school is that it's usually easier (and less costly) to sell more to your existing customer than to try to get new customers...

If every new dollar you earn is less costly, you have more operating margin which you can then use to feed back into your business and make it grow faster. Thus cross-selling and up-selling techniques are really just no brainers that nearly everyone uses. Works in almost any business (including the gaming industry).

There is more to free to play, there is a big difference between player versus enemy and player vs player. In the player versus enemy, paying cash makes the game quicker and easier (those with less time on hand are more likely to spend than those with more time available to play).

Player versus player is a whole different. Underlying that game is the ability of publisher agents to enter the game fully kitted out to kick the arses of players not spending enough. Player versus player, the inevitable winners

I think keeping 'Pay to win' concerns at the forefront is the key. Nothing turns me off of a game faster than that. At least, when the game is one where I'm competing against other people online. When it's a single-player game, the idea that you have to pay in order to win really irritates me, but if it merely takes a fair amount more skill to win if you don't pay, then it's sort of OK.

When I heard TF2 is going f2p I was fearing a p2w system, akin to many other f2p games where you are essentially the "product" for those that dump money on the makers because your tools, your weapons, your equipment just cannot hold a candle to theirs and you're, essentially, akin to some rather smart bot on easy difficulty level.

Valve solved the problem fairly well. As far as I can tell, you can have all the items for free that someone who spends money can have (well, aside of some vanity items without any effect in game). What happened is that you can either dump money on them to get the weapon you want NOW or you wait for the random system to drop one on you.

Also, the weapons in TF2 are not like in most other games where you don't touch your "newbie" gun anymore once you got something better. The fun part is that you don't get more powerful with more choice, you just get more versatility and more choice for certain situations. Pretty much every item that gives you some bonus in one area has some rather nasty drawback. A gun that slows the enemy does less damage, a rocket with more direct damage does less splash damage, a sniper gun that does more damage uses tracer rounds and gives away your position... you get the idea.

What happened is that you can either dump money on them to get the weapon you want NOW or you wait for the random system to drop one on you.

At least half of the freemium games out there do this, and it's only marginally better if at all.

You can grind for a weapon, and eventually, after spending time slogging away with weak weapons, you'll reach the point where you've got equipment that you want for the class you like (hopefully). Or you can spend the money now, and immediately have the equipment you want.

Some of the weapons in TF2 certainly seem better than their free companions, and even just granting extra versatility in a game is still grant

Hmm... quite seriously, I play most of the time with stock items, there are only a select few that I actually consider interesting as an option, but they're usually for very special occasions that I could as well tackle with the stock items, it's just more fun to do it with the alternatives.

I couldn't really put my finger on any non-stock weapon and say that it is THE default choice for any of the classes. Most just "allow" you to stick with your class instead of switching to another one. Like, say, using a

Again, even just being able to eventually have a weapon drop or craft it is something I'm not for. I just plain don't like being at a disadvantage just because I haven't devoted the same amount of time into a game or paid as much money as other players. Just not my cup of tea. I prefer even playing fields, especially for games I've paid retail for.

And that's even if it's "only" that I'm less versatile or have fewer options. There may be an item that suits my playstyle better. There may be an item that count

That's why I'm only "mildly" annoyed; that and how these days I only tend to play the game when a friend pulls me into it anyways. Mild like the "spicy" food the local Asian restaurants serve white people.

Everything came from drops, and you needed gold to use certain things (kind of like a luxury tax). You could buy gold with in-game money/items, or real life money. The game economy itself remained the same as in the monthly subscription version though. No amount of money created game items from scratch (with the exception of gold). The general currency was pieces of eight.

. ..Free players need only buy 1 item from the Mann Co. store to move up. I believe the cheapest item in the game hovers around.25 cents? Maybe 50 cents..It's still exceptionally cheap. Once again the upgrade weapons are accessible through crafting and achievements. Achievements can be done on achievement servers and would speed the play up all together. The argument is hollow because for some reason detractors desperately want to make this a greater ideological argument than it is. Valve made a grea

The problem with this line of thought is that you've ALREADY decided to use your time for leisure and not for making money. There's no opportunity cost there; by playing the game you've already committed yourself to not making money. So you could either not make money and not have to pay, or you could not make money and have to pay. Which sounds better?

Actually, it means that if you don't have lots of free time, or prefer not to spend an inordinate amount of time in the game, you can still have a complete, fulfilling experience, leaving some of the drudgery time wasters behind. I means you can do more of the fun stuff with the time you spend.

Maybe I don't want to spend my limited gaming time playing a game where I'm at a disadvantage compared to all of the other players simply because I haven't invested as much time or money as they have? I don't play games to work at them, I play them for the enjoyment.

You don't have to look at it as earning money. People pay extra money all the time to give themselves a better leisure experience. If paying money gives you an better experience then it is worth the price.

I just think it is like golf. Some people will want to buy the most expensive golf clubs and personal trainers because they believe it makes them better. Others are content saving money using their old equipment and grinding it out at the driving range. It is still a game based mostly on skill, so no o

If you are lazy, you can pay. If you don't want to pay, you can work a little for it. Sounds good to me!

Calling people who buy items "lazy" is all well and good.. but:

Its hard for someone smart not to be sitting there waiting for that rare to random spawn to calculate the number of hours they are spending trying to get X divided over the cost of X in some marketplace... at which point you realize that if you wandered around the city collecting cans you'd have had that item 3 months ago.

If you are lazy, you can pay. If you don't want to pay, you can work a little for it. Sounds good to me!

Sounds like: If you want a challenge, you can play the game. If you just want to get through the game, you can pay.

It does seem perfectly rational that there are people who get enjoyment from doing it the hard (time consuming) way and other people who get just as much enjoyment out of doing it the easy (expedited) way.

I'd say you're the lazy one. I spend most of my time working and improving myself. That I have ample money to plop down for all the add-ons when I download TF2 is because I am not lazy. YMMV, some people just have money, others don't have to work as hard as I do.

Don't try to fool people. iTunes is just a segment of the industry, not the industry as a whole. The industry management (RIAA and MPAA) do not want this model, and fight against it. Hence we had SOPA and PIPA being lobbied for, and lets not forget the constant stream of lawsuits, invalid DCMA take down orders, domain seizures, and other miscellaneous police actions.

Switching to "freemium" now may have increased revenue now. That doesn't necessarily mean it would have been a good idea to release as freemium in the first place. Valve had 4 years to convince people to pay up-front for TF2, and they succeeded quite well! But after four years, you've just about exhausted the supply of people that are willing to pay up-front. Switching to freemium not only brings in new customers, it also convinces some of the original buyers to pay again for in-game items. Now that's smart.

IMO they struck the right balance, too: TF2 is still fun without paying anything (or in my case, any more than I paid for the Orange Box.) If you had to "pay to win", people might be pretty pissed off.

So, is that 12x the revenue at release? Or 12x the revenue compared to when they went free2play which was after the game had been out for years and basically wasn't even for sale anymore? Also... Revenue? What a useless number. How much have PROFITS increased? You now have hundreds of thousands of people playing your game for free... not buying anything at all. Are the few that are paying, actually making up for all that?The clear endgame for this situation is to get people to pay as much money as possible

Revenue is an accurate indicator of success in the video game business.

Most of the costs of a video game is during development which is a fixed costs. Once a company makes enough money to cover its fixed costs, most of the additional revenue goes into profits. It doesn't costs that much more to distribute additional copies of a game especially if you are doing it online.

The Original - Identical to Rocket Launcher, but fires from the center instead of from the right.

Cow Mangler 5000 - 5 Rockets per clip. Unlimited ammo. Slower reload time. Rockets shoot slowly. Rockets have a good amount of splash area. Can not do critical hits. When your clip is full, right-click to shoot a charge shot (takes 3 seconds to fire, during which you move at 1/4 speed) which does mini-crits and sets enemies in its splash range on fire... but uses the entire clip of 5 rockets. All shots do 80% less damage versus buildings, but a charged shot disables buildings for 4 seconds.

Since the subject came up, I'm going to mention that EverQuest is going to launch their Free-to-Play program in about a week. (the original, EQ2 has been F2P for a while now) info is at http://www.everquest.com/free/ [everquest.com] (also a new fresh server starting.)

I don't work for Sony, I just like (and play) EQ. In fact I work for a competitor.

I'm not a fan of the F2P model, I plan to keep my regular sub; but an MMO needs fresh blood to stay healthy, and I'm hoping this will boost the userbase.

i know this is trying to be a troll but he is correct. the fremium model prey's on the inability of many people to not only add the micro transactions together. but also disrupts how people gauge the 'value' of the product by infusing emotional attachments into the mix.

prey's on the inability of many people to not only add the micro transactions together. but also disrupts how people gauge the 'value' of the product by infusing emotional attachments into the mix.

Screwing with our brain wiring is sort of how video games (or board games, for that matter) get us to buy them in the first place. There's nothing rational about buying a video game for $50 and then wasting tons of time playing it - it's a purely emotional experience. If running around smashing ogres is what gets your endorphins going, great. If buying Farmville charms does it, who is to say that emotional response is any worse?

Now's when people will start in with this-or-that study that shows that video games sharpen this-or-that skill, as if that's why they bought the game!

There's nothing rational about buying a video game for $50 and then wasting tons of time playing it - it's a purely emotional experience. If running around smashing ogres is what gets your endorphins going, great.

Wait wait, don't tell me--I think I can figure out on which side of the "Can Video Games Be Art?" debate you fall.

You seem to be implying that art is rational and objective. Art is neither, it is emotional. Video games most certainly ARE art, and just as purchasing art is most certainly NOT a rational activity, neither is purchasing video games. That doesn't make spending money on either foolish or bad, rationality is not a measure of morality or other subjective values.

Most people, whatever they believe, are hugely in favor of engaging in some degree of irrationality. Anything you do that does not directly improve you

Valve's freemium model is different. The paid content doesn't give you a huge advantage over the free content. Most of the addons are cosmetic and the weapons are balanced or worse than the stock weapons. You're still a competitive player with the free version of TF2, and if you play for a reasonable amount of time the paid content drops randomly anyway. Even if you wanted to sink a bunch of cash into TF2 to be better than everyone else, you can't. I mean, even the paid items can't be crafted.

There is no paid content in tf2 that can't be obtained through other means, either by trading, crafting, or simply having the item "drop" like an mmo (it just appears between lives while playing, you usually get 10 a week or so if you play a lot). The most expensive content is vanity items, hats or other facial accessories, but those can be obtained via the above methods as well. Several of the earlier ones are available through achievements as well. Most of the strongest items for all classes are the origi

I play TF2 quite a bit. Nothing that can actually give you an advantage is buy-only. This includes someone else buying something, and you trading for it. You can get every game-changing item without paying a cent. I bought the game, so I have never had a free-only account, but it's my understanding that you need to have a premium account to trade, which means you have to spend at least 50 cents on a item. Once you've done that, however, you can basically get any game-changing item you want. Things randomly drop while you are playing, but there are 9 classes. Trade any two weapons, and you can get any one weapon you want, generally. It is VERY easy to become competitively equipped with one class, and only takes a month or so of playing to become competitively equipped for all classes you would likely play regularly. TF2 is without a doubt the model of Free-to-Play gaming, from a business perspective. I have bought a few keys, but the impact has been nothing but cosmetic.

The paid content doesn't give you a huge advantage over the free content.

So it gives you a minor advantage over the free content?

We're talking about TF2 still, right?

The thing about "paid content" in TF2 is that you can get any of the non-cosmetic items over time, as you get 6-8 random weapons per week. There are also 27 weapons (3 per class) that can be unlocked through achievements. Weapons can also be crafted, but I'll be honest: It's better to wait for a random drop, because 6-8 items a week makes it take a long time to craft even one weapon, let alone multiple.

The major problem with f2p accounts is that there are restrictions [tf2.com] on them until you buy your first item from the store. In USD, the cheapest item is $0.49, but Valve has a minimum of $5 for adding funds to your Steam wallet... however, you can use the remaining $4.51 towards anything on Steam, including games.

My problem with freemium even when done "right" or whatever you want to call it is still is unacceptable to me at a fundamental level:

I -do- not want to be confronted with real life purchasing decisions every few minutes while playing games. Period. I don't want to be dropped into a "store" everytime I die. I don't want to be prompted to buy something everytime I start up, and every time I quit, and every time a new level loads.

I've never had a TF2 free account, but from my understanding is that it bugs you once when you start the game with one of the game's characters having a text bubble mentioning it on the main menu. This is the only time the store is mentioned. other than having a button on the main menu for it. This text doesn't appear if you've ever bought anything from the store or bought TF2 itself from a store (or bought the Orange Box from a store or through Steam [steampowered.com]).

That saod, I don't mind expansion packs. 20 new tracks and 5 new cars for $10 bucks or whatever is perfectly fine. But don't advertise it in the game so that I have to explicitly decline buying it every time I play... and don't break it up into micro-transactions... $1 per track, 1$ per car... I don't want to excert the mental process of deciding is this car worth a buck, is this car worth a buck, is this car worth a buck to me... I just don't.

When TF2 has new weaponry come out, they sell them as sets along with related cosmetic items, if you really want to pay for them. The catch is that they're ridiculously overpriced... and usually they're added to the drop system at the same time they come out. So, unless you really want the cosmetic items, there's little point in buying them.

And don't have me competing with people in the expansion pack cars if they are anything more than just skins.

Remember even "Situationally better" is still better if you get any control over the situation, which of course, unless you are an idiot... you always do.

I believe I've already addressed this point.

But more to the point, the way items are balanced in TF2, a lot of the times they're different rather than strictly better. One of the more controversial items from the Christmas 2011 update was the Spy-cicle.

The Spy-cicle is a melee weapon for the Spy... all Spy melee weapons do instant-kill backstabs. Note: Spies can disguise as enemy players, which becomes important in the description below.

The Spy-cicle prevents the usual death screams from players, but instead makes a freezing sound and leaves an ice statue behind instead of a corpse. It can also be used to prevent fire damage (and makes the extinguishing sound when this happens) for 2 seconds at the expense of the Spy losing the Spy-cicle for 15 seconds.

The thing is that its upsides and downsides are tied together. Sure, I can prevent fire at the expense of being able to instant-kill b

WTF? just use the stock weapons. The new weapons are just more interesting to play with. hacking a guys head off with a sword for example...cool and intimidating....but you can only run in a straight line so all the victim needs to do is step to the left or right and shoot you.

So different people value different items in game differently, ergo the system is broken? Certainly there's a psychological factor involved with many small purchases vs 1 large purchase, but suggesting that people need to value a game purchase the same as many micro-transactions is ludicrous. Sounds like old-man syndrome.

fremium model prey's on the inability of many people to not only add the micro transactions together

#idonthavefactstobackthisup, but when fremium games generate more profit, it's not because the same people end up paying more. It's because more people end up paying a bit. So, instead of me having to make large-ish (let's say 50 euros) investment on a game and hope that it's good, I can get a game for free or for a nominal fee (a couple of euros), play a while and if I like the game, occasionally buy something nice.

There are many advantages here: I get to personalize my games (if I visit a friend with sa

So... yeah. I really love the microtransaction model though I'm pretty confident that I can perform simple addition.

Same here. My first real exposure to it was with Lord of the Rings: Online went F2P, and after playing P2P MMO's for many years, it was nice not to have to deal with the monthly fees and all that shit. Plus, unlike many F2P games, you can grind out the currency (Turbine Points), rather than having to purchase them. It's not as fast or convenient as plugging in a credit card and buying them, but it's really not that bad.

I guess the whole pay to win thing never bothered me, particularly with MMO's. I'm no

#idonthavefactstobackthisup, but when fremium games generate more profit, it's not because the same people end up paying more.

Short reply: this is incorrect [gamasutra.com]. From what I recall of the stats, most F2P games make all of their money on ~2% of the user base. Think of that Apple guy that buys everything that has an Apple logo on it. They're the type those games target for profits. TF2 in particular can capitalize on "whales" since they can buy lots of items and then give them to friends (or trade them for rare items from other people), rather then being entirely restricted to personal purchases.

You're forgetting the fact that without a player base, a game dies. Particularly multiplayer, which is all that TF2 is. By introducing it as F2P, Valve probably quadrupled the player base overnight. Not only that, but they introduced them in to a game with hundreds of bugfixes, content updates and major graphical overhauls. All of which had already been paid for. Even while most of those freepers will never buy anything in the store, they provide the much needed player base for those who are spending money in game to play with. They're mainly playing on third party servers, so by opening up the game to anyone, they've increased the game's perceived value at no additional cost to valve or the end user, while allowing the game's popularity to flourish.

no the humble indie bundles are 'pay what you want' the fremium model is called fremium because it's nicer then the actual description. 'pay to win'. the fremium model is designed to give those who don't pay a lesser experience then those who willingly ignore simple addition and pay for a weapon here(10 dollars), a perk there (12 dollars), double experience(10 dollars), unlocking classes(15 dollars), etc.

any way, anyone who DOES pay only ONE cent on a 'pay what you want' IS ripping them off. since they are giving you full, unhindered my any sort of these rip off schemes, games. on the good faith you give them a good amount of money. I pay more then the average for linux which in it's self almost always almost double what window's users pay.

If a game is pay to win, it'll eventually lose it's customer base. You may have noticed that TF2 is explicitly trying not to be pay-to-win. I'm not a user, so I don't know, but at least they are trying. And eventually a functioning model where game designers are encouraged to improve the game while gamers can't just "pay to win" will develop.

If a game is pay to win, it'll eventually lose it's customer base. You may have noticed that TF2 is explicitly trying not to be pay-to-win. I'm not a user, so I don't know, but at least they are trying. And eventually a functioning model where game designers are encouraged to improve the game while gamers can't just "pay to win" will develop.

TF2 is absolutely pay to win.The goal of the game is to collect all the hats and useless crap.

I hop on TF2 every once in a while only to find that no one is actually playing TF2. Control points? Intelligence briefcase? The cart? Nope. No one gives a shit about those things. They only care about farming shit and running around like retards.

Maybe you are choosing the wrong server. Some server descriptions include words like "achievements server" or "trading server". I don't use them expecting hard out action, I choose other servers. There is most certainly a lot of full on action going on, and play to win usually means support your team to make it win.

What you describe isn't a competitive game but a social one -- collecting meaningless bits of fluff that look neat but serve no purpose.

Pay to win implies that forking over money gives you an advantage over players who haven't. Hats confer no such advantage. You just mad.. for some reason I can't even begin to understand.

When the game is about collecting pointless shit, then paying to get that pointless shit instantly is paying to win.The game has been about collecting pointless shit for about 2 years now. No one actually plays the game.

Yes, but you also find a good number of weapons just by playing. Yes, I purchased the game before the play to win thing, but I have never purchased any weapons and I routinely score in the top on my team. I'm not even that good of a FPS player.

There are two free-to-play models that I've seenPay to Win andPay for Time

Pay to Win involves payment-only items that give a distinct advantage over other players. Games like APB contain Pay-To-Win models. Sure, these Pay-to-win items in the hands of an idiot will not confer any advantage over a skilled player with base weapons, but pay-for-exclusive weapons with unique properties (in the case of APB, silencers) scream Pay-to-win. I'm told there are some MMOs that follow this route, but I don't know which o

If you are willing to put in some time, eventually you can earn those exact same weapons. With a bit of time the playing field is still level and skill is more important.
The only advantage of paying is you can buy the weapon and have it now. Most weapons in TF2 are fairly well balanced so even someone that buys every single weapon versus someone with stock weapons will still be fairly even.

the fremium model is designed to give those who don't pay a lesser experience then those who willingly ignore simple addition and pay for a weapon here(10 dollars), a perk there (12 dollars), double experience(10 dollars), unlocking classes(15 dollars), etc.

Not if done right. TF2 does it right (I haven't played much since they went F2P, granted): all the classes are unlocked by default. None of the unlockable weapons are overtly more powerful than the defaults. Some are certainly easier to use, or more effective with certain play-styles (or overpowered on certain maps, etc), but all of them have some sort of draw-back for whatever advantage they give, so unlocking a new one is more of a side-ways shift rather than an upwards one. Also, you can unlock everythin

In almost all the freemium games, 10 bucks buys A LOT more than just a stupid weapon. I paid 10 bucks in Star Trek On Line and bought about 180K dilithium....that paid for full upgrades to all my ships for the first two thirds of the levels. I could have farmed the dilithium, but I am lazy.

More like "you bought this game and now we're going to charge you again to really be able to continue playing it." Well if the future these publishers want is games-are-a-service, then the games are not worth $60 anymore.. they're closer to $0.25

Yeah! All we got was four years of the best multilayer game on the planet! And what was that bullshit with it being bundled with Portal and Half Life 2: Episode 2? Who has even heard of those games!? Now people can get it for free? I'd have just waited if I'd known! RIP OFF RIP OFF RIP OFF! And what's with people discounting older games? They should have to refund the difference to me! It's not fair!!

I would not be surprised to see this happen to Counter-Strike soon, lots of people play that game all the time and only paid once years ago. So you want that shiny AWP? Behold the paywall! In fact that game could be pretty stuffed with premium content.

You can't have a successful, long-term F2P / microtransaction game that sells power. Locking the AWP behind a paywall would be selling power.

That's poison to the game in the long-term.

So is making it near-impossible to get the AWP without paying.

People know, sooner or later, when they're getting ripped off, or when people are trying to rip them off.My mom used to play games on Facebook. Honestly, they weren't bad -- not my cup of tea, but I tried one or two and hec

You get all the content that was in the game before it went F2P, plus all the content afterwards, for free. Good enough?

Oh sure you need a tiny bit of grind to get some of the new items, but that actually adds a sense of accomplishment to getting the items. Likely, a lot of people would stop playing if they got all the new items automatically. It's no more evil than WoW (actually, far less evil than WoW, since there isn't a monthly fee). And it isn't like the new items give a much of an advantage, either:

Please people stop buying stupid hats and stuff for TF2. Every single time you dump money on that game it's less incentive for valve to spend money on other, one time cash cow, games like HL3 or HL2:EP3.Why should they spend massive resources making a game people only buy once when they can get idiots spending real money on digital hats from now until valve runs out of pixels.

Most (all?) new items these days are community submitted [steamcommunity.com], and the majority of those are cosmetic items. In other words, it's easy money for Valve because they don't even do most of the work.

Most (all?) new items these days are community submitted, and the majority of those are cosmetic items. In other words, it's easy money for Valve because they don't even do most of the work.

they're mainly cosmetic because being a shooter-type game there really can't be *that* many different weapons... and you can't 'pay to win' in tf2 unlike some (most? nearly all? other "f2p" games) as most weapon bonuses for non-default items are offset by (at least one) significant penalty... so that leaves cosmetic an

Parent didn't imply all the money went to Valve, merely that it's easy money for them. It is. They get money for doing nothing -- and also, the item creator gets just as much money, except for doing something.

it's easy money for Valve because they don't even do most of the work.

But even more important than that, any item that is approved and included automatically grants the original creator a percentage of store sales (I want to say 25%, but am not sure). While it certainly makes Valve's job easier, it also is financially rewarding to those who submit items (as well as the fame they might have garnered anyway) and keeps a more invested community.

What makes you think they won't be using this model in a new HL game? And since they have more money, they can hire more developers and make more games. Maybe you are missing the part where no one will pay for content in crappy games.

The only thing that has made me lose respect for them is the drama over the DOTA trademark.

Out of curiosity, why? They have the original creator of DotA and the current maintainer of DotA on payroll, and are creating the sequel to it, whereas Blizzard did... nothing, at all, with DotA before Valve picked it up.

HL3 will come out regardless of how many hats people buy. But first, they need some new big thing to bundle it with.

The Half-life series has made Valve, because each step of the way, they've bundled the game with something else that they hoped to make money on. In the original HL, they did it unintentionally with the extremely moddable engine. In HL2, it was bundled with Steam, which has become their bread-and-butter. How many people would have gotten started on Steam if HL2 didn't require it?

I think you're going for "Pay to Win". TF2 is definitely not that. It's not even "Pay or Time to Win", which is the model you describe. It's "Pay or Time for Options", which is my preferred F2P system, along with "Pay for Cosmetic Alterations". A new player is purely limited by the skill curve. The basic tools available are good enough that even veteran players continue to use them, even when they unlock additional weapons.

Ineed, I started playing Tribes: Ascend this Tuesday and something that is really bothering me is the XP system where you can buy upgrades and weapons for either dollars or "XP" at my current level I make about 150 XP per game, or 1000 XP if the teams are stacked and I manage to capture the flag. Most upgrades are in the tens of thousands with entire classes locked by hundreads of thousands XP. At this rate I'm never going to be on a level play with people of my skill level because I'm not only playing agai